Horizon
by Sanpizil
Summary: Neuro, Yako, and the case of the Winter Tower. Continues directly from Today. Finished.
1. Fantasia

* * *

I don't own Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, rather obviously. My goodness, I would be bilingual if I did, and rather skillfully so!

* * *

Hahi, I got a lot of comments concerning Neuro and Samish. To be honest, I was a bit surprised.

Concerning Neuro, Samish, and their differences in strength: Hina A. hit the nail on the head. I actually had Neuro giving Yako a longer explanation on the various differences between types of demon in Today's final chapter, but took it out because it seemed rather out-of-character for Neuro to surrender so much information so willingly (you can see a small remnant of that in that Neuro mentions demons that eat rain). There are, in this silly little AU (it has firmly stepped onto that land, I am sorry to say), different types of demons. Somebody will show up later in the story to explain things a little better, but I just wanted to drop a line to all of you saying that yes, indeed, the outrageous difference in strengths is on purpose and with definite reason.

* * *

Yako breathed in, breathed out. The air was cold against her face. She covered her nose, paused. Thought. Put her hands down. She couldn't very well keep her nose covered for the entire time she was in here, after all.

Looking around, Yako heaved a sigh of relief. The walls were that deep blue color of ice she saw on television programs about mountain climbers in the arctic, covered with intricate white vines of ice, spirals and loops and curls that covered everything but went nowhere. If Neuro was here, he'd probably have some cunning, cutting metaphor

but that's why she's here, isn't it?

Yako breathed in and out again, squared her shoulders, and stepped towards the curved corridor in front of her. The rustling plants at her feet followed like well-heeled dogs. She looked down at them thoughtfully as she walked; seeing nothing else with color attracted her eyes to the bright greens, as if drawn by some unmeasurably great force.

Where did they come from? Neuro had never shown any ability with... well, normal-looking plants, just demon ones (ones with too many eyes and too few weaknesses, she thought with an ornery grimace). Besides that, he'd always enjoyed telling her in _excruciating_ detail what his toys did and what they might do to her. True, there had hardly been time, but Yako couldn't think of why he'd use some grass and flowers and not one of his terrifying tools. This... well, to be honest, all signs pointed to the fact that Neuro had nothing to do with these plants.

That made Yako worry more, and she was so distracted she almost missed the door glowing with what looked like angry emoticons. The sight made her stare a little. Each door was decorated with huge purple O! symbols.

"...I guess Samish must have gone on the internet," Yako muttered, feeling a little spring of giddy laughter bubbling up in her. She remembered the first time Neuro had gone on the internet- he'd immediately lain down with an ice pack over his eyes for three hours exactly (Godai had timed it, for some reason) before going back on, gritting his teeth in what looked, to the untrained eye, like a grin (Yako had seen it for what it was- an expression usually reserved for the greatest idiocy and her, which for Neuro were, distressingly, not mutually exclusive).

The emoticons broke the timid mood she'd been cultivating, and she pushed the double doors opened with authority, ready to face whatever Samish had thrown in her way. She'd come here to rescue a demon from another, not worry about... everything.

* * *

"Where are you going, Yako?" Yako turned so quickly her neck gave a vexed little twinge of pain.

"_Neuro!_" There he was, with black-rimmed glasses on and a perplexed expression he usually reserved for the customers and police. He was shirtless, too (Yako almost died of shock right there- she'd seen him in his vest, but never outright topless), and slung haphazardly around his waist was a towel. He was drying his hair off with another towel, and when he pulled it off his hair there was just fluffy blondeness, no black and no triangle pyramid ornaments. Yako stared. He looked... human. What had Samish-

"What are you wearing?" He sounded incredulous now, standing and coming up to her. His body was so close to hers that she could smell the shampoo he used- it smelled like tea tree oil and it suited him. Standing there in the oppressive heat (it felt like summer, and she absently shed her winter coat and started to undo her scarf, gaze fixed on Neuro), looking at Neuro, Yako felt an intense surge of relief. "You look like you're ready to go tromping around in the arctic with the penguins."

"There are no penguins in the arctic; just the antarctic..." Yako breathed, dizzy with happiness. Literally dizzy- she sat down on the couch (ouch, it was a little harder than she remembered it) and blinked, hard.

Neuro sat down next to her, close, close enough that their legs were pressed together, and peered at her, one hand moving on his head, still haphazardly drying his hair. "Aha, sorry, Miss Detective. I'm always surprised by what you know, Yako." He nudged her shoulder with his and winked. He looked stylish. Yako felt like she was missing something very, very important. "You should get out of that weird gear and into something more appropriate, though. Your parents are going to be here soon to interrogate me." He gave a rich, friendly little laugh. It was a sound that implied a joke between them, and Yako strained to remember what on earth he was talking about.

"My...?" Wait, wait. What?

"Yeah, remember? They wanted to interrogate the big bad man that had come in and started dating their sweet little girl," Neuro shook his head and gave her a rueful smile, "well, your dad did, mostly." She stared back at him, uncomprehending. There were so many things wrong with that...

wait, but, what was wrong? She'd met Neuro when she started her detective agency. He was her first customer, in fact! She'd saved him from his conniving older sister and jail, and he'd started showing up to work for her out of gratitude. They'd kind of just... fallen together one day, and since then her parents had been deeply suspicious. That's right- tonight they were all getting together for the first time! Aha, how could she forget something so important?!

"What time are we meeting them again, Neuro?" Yako looked around their office-slash-studio. She felt like... two people were missing, but no... it was just Neuro and she. How strange.

"Ten, it's six, and you always take forever. The shower's free if you need it." Yako's brows knit- it really felt like something was off, and terribly so, but... she had a dinner to get ready for, this was important...

"Hey, Yako," Neuro sighed, tilting her face towards him with a slightly damp hand (his fingers were pruned, he'd spent too much time in the shower again, he always did love hot water, hot water, hot water, hot springs, something in the springs, something), "you okay?"

She gave a little nod. He chuckled, then leaned down, clearly intending to kiss her. Yako tilted her face up to meet his, glad always for his sunny kisses (DEMON FISH IN THE HOT SPRINGS, **THIS IS NOT NEURO**)

* * *

"oh!!"

Yako jerked back and away, but there was no fake Neuro anyways. She was sitting on a block of ice, and she was _freezing_. Oh, god, she'd taken off her boots and coat, and the way that had been going... She let an intense blush warm her cheeks and poked at the little grasses around her with her re-clad feet. "Some help _you_ were." They rustled in a distinctly embarrassed manner.

"Samish! You disgusting pervert!" Yako yelled out, feeling angry at being toyed with like that. It was none of his business, her thoughts and musings, and it was cowardly of him to use them against her like that. She strode towards the stairwell disappearing upwards, the anger of an insulted girl sliding quicksilver-fast through her. Yet another reason to give Samish what he had coming.

* * *

There was a long spiral of stairs, these darker, almost navy blue in color, and as Yako strode upwards, she furrowed her brows in thought. Thinking of him made her realize something important: she didn't know _how_ to give him what he deserved. How was she going to rescue Neuro? She'd just kind of charged in, anger and desperation fueling her, but now that she was here Yako had to admit she was at a bit of a loss. He'd beaten _Neuro_ up, not only _up_ but into a_ bleeding unconscious_ state. He'd thrown Neuro through the outer wall of a building and he'd called up a storm of snow and suicide and, and, oh god.

The urge to cry rushed through her, but Yako fought it with an angry press of her lips. She could cry later, when she'd rescued Neuro and the flood of patients in the city's emergency rooms was ebbing. Yako shook her head. She really didn't know what to do, though.

The hesitant whisper of plants called her attention down. Something zinged through her, and Yako gave a gasp. She wasn't sure why, really, but she had the feeling that they... maybe they could help her. "Hey," she crouched down, extending a finger to them. A dandelion stretched itself up in near-instant growth, coming to a halt just at the tip of her finger. Okay, so... these were obviously somewhat abnormal plants. "Could you... help me? Rescue Neuro?" She held her breath. The plants stilled under her, then gave a little shrug, as if to say that it was up to her, not them.

The absurdity of talking to plants and thinking she was getting a response dragged Yako back to earth from her cloud. "O- okay. Well. Let's... go."

Seriously, though: what on earth was she going to do?!

* * *

The same standard always apply: I am shy, so I understand if you, too, are too shy to respond. It's very pleasing to me that people simply read these stories and enjoy them. That said, I'm coming to find that I love hearing everybody's theories about what is happening and why. There seems to be a core group of you that especially likes 'thinking aloud', and I am always interested to read what you all are thinking as the story moves on! I have everything already planned out, yes, but it makes me titter a bit when you clever people catch on to something I have dropped for you.

* * *


	2. Intermezzo

* * *

I do not own anybody here but Samish, and, well. You can certainly have him if you want... though I'm not sure why you would.

* * *

A brief interlude in which we find Samish and Neuro having a conversation, of... sorts...

* * *

Upstairs, on the top floor, Samish was smiling airily, nibbling on a long fingernail and toying with his scarf. Neuro was everything he'd hoped for and more. It was delightful, finding somebody that finally lived up to his admittedly exacting standards.

"Ah, Neuro, you're lovely like that." Neuro glared up at him from the floor, half-covered in ice, a blossom of purple around his green eyes. Samish had forced him back into human form; he never _had_ liked birds (too smart for their own good), but for the Great Neuro, he was willing to overlook a minor thing like that- after all, it wasn't _Neuro's_ fault that he was a bird demon. He just didn't know Samish's tastes yet. He'd learn, and learn to appreciate the world like Samish did, too. "We're going to have all sorts of great fun, just loosen up! I- ...what was that?"

Neuro growled and dragged himself to his feet despite the leg twisted at a horrifically wrong angle. "I don't really think you understand- nngh!" Samish growled, wrapping his hands around Neuro's throat and squeezing.

"Hush, Great Neuro, I'm listening." Over the choked, feeble sounds of Neuro suffocating (it was so cute how he scrabbled at his own strong hands with those butter-soft little gloves), Samish cocked his head. It sounded like screaming. He chuckled and relaxed his grip, enough that Neuro could take in hitched, whispering gasps of air, and breathed into his ear, "I set all sorts of lovely traps for your pet. She'll be in twenty different pieces by the third floor."

Neuro's eyes had been rolling back, lips turning pale despite the precious feed of breath he was dragging in now and then, but at Samish's words his eyes focused and _blazed_. "Oh, haha, I hadn't thought you were listening. Haha."

He dropped the other demon and watched him whine futilely around a broken ribcage and a stupendous bruise on his throat.

"Yy," Neuro paused to hack, gasping for air and clawing at the iced floor in agony, "Yakoooh...?" He couldn't get enough support from his body to end the word properly, so it came out sounding like a death rattle

"Don't get your hopes up, Great Neuro," Samish dropped to his knees and threaded his hand through Neuro's hair, "regardless of any tricks of yours, she's just a human. That move with the little- ugh, those little _plants_, was tricky, I'll give you that. But..." Samish frowned. Neuro's eyes had shot opened again and he was staring at Samish.

"...Whhhat plantsnnn-!" The words, a soft bark through bruises and breaks, were genuinely surprised. Samish blinked down at the Great Neuro.

"...the little... you know. Plants. Green. Followed your human slave around." Neuro's blank look made the hairs on the back of Samish's neck stand up, so he backhanded him as hard as he could. Neuro slammed to a rest against the far wall, and from the crack his neck had made he'd take a while to get up again; it sounded like he'd broken his neck. Again. Siiigh. Seriously, he hadn't expected the human world to weaken a stupendous demon like Neuro _this_ much. It was a tad too dramatic for his liking.

Samish didn't like that _look _either, though. It meant a surprise, and the Great Detective didn't allow surprises. Why should he? But those plants, those plants... if Neuro hadn't had anything to do with them, then... who did?

His thoughts began to circle and snap at each other like dogs, and Samish became so distracted chasing them into submission that he screamed when he felt a searing wave of greenhouse-hot air slam into the room.

* * *


	3. Scordatura

* * *

Oh my lord I hate writing these things but rather obviously I do not own Neuro, Yako... anybody, which is good. In fact, it is illegal to traffic in people, as I understand it!

* * *

ALMOST TIME FOR A CONCLUSIVE BATTLE HOW EXCITED ARE YOU not me.

I sat down and wrote all three of these first chapters in one go, so now I must sit back and think rather firmly of how to proceed. I sincerely hope that nobody thinks me silly for this chapter- I have a rather extensive gathering of things concerning Yako that support my theory, to one degree or another (in anime, mostly, since that has been watched to its end). Certainly not to this exact conclusion, but to the general idea. Thank you all very very much for reading so far!

As always, please do not worry about being shy to review; I too am shy with strangers and so understand. To those of you that do choose to review, thank you very much! Your thoughts are always so interesting to read, and I do apologize for the abundance of cliffhangers in my writing.

* * *

Yako had been climbing those god-forsaken stairs for what felt like a ludicrously long time before she came to the next door. It didn't have any emoticons or faces on it, or any ornamentation at all, actually. Yako kind of liked it- she had been getting seriously sick of seeing rich whorls and embroideries on every single surface. There was a _balance_ to be had on anything, geez. Samish clearly had no sense of design, though he might have thought he did.

The plain door opened under her hands as if inviting her in. She stood in the threshold, examining the room suspiciously, but it was just an empty, normal room. Well, made of ice and in a storm demon's tower, but just... a room.

Yako gave a shrug and stepped inside, looking up at the domed ceiling. Wow, it was a lot bigger once she was inside. "Hello?"

A slice of air behind her made her scream and dash forwards. Spinning on her heel, she saw a monster made of shining-slick ice, complete with claws the size of her head. The thing looked like nothing so much as a thickly-furred velociraptor, complete with cunning-nasty eyes and a clever tongue that probed the air for her scent. "H- heee— HELP!"

She screamed, which just made the ice-monster rear, displaying an underbelly covered in snow, before lunging down towards her. She was saved from instant death by the drag of greenery under her, forcing her to fall over backwards onto her ass. "Ow," she gasped, feeling a sudden flow of what had to be blood from the side of her head. The monster's claws had clipped her head, and her blood was pooling around... one of her hairclips! Sudden panic surged through her, regardless of the snow- raptor thing rearing again for another strike. Her father had given her those clips, and he'd put them on her every morning along with a kiss on top of her head. If she was going to die here, like this, ripped opened like some kind of prey animal, then she was going to die with her _freaking_ hair clips on!

Another blur of motion surged through her line of vision. Yako forgot all about hairclips in favor of covering her face and curling up into a ball. A hungry-sounding crack, similar to what she heard in spring on bridges as the ice broke up underneath, sounded. Yako peered out from between her protecting arms, bewildered. What she saw made her drop her arms and sit up, amazed.

The little plants were suddenly not-so-little, wrangling with the monster as if they were another monster themselves. The hind leg of the thing had been snapped off already, and the other limbs followed soon after, until the monster was a shattered collection of ice in varying shades.

Still streaming copious amounts of blood, shaken, Yako gasped and snatched up her hairclip absently, staggering to her feet and walking to the green vine. She put an amazed hand on the thing, feeling the cords of individual plants that went into every twist of the body. It was slowly shifting into a shape reminiscent of a lizard, complete with a great ruff made entirely out of flowers. Clipping her hairclip back on, Yako started to examine it more closely, but it suddenly began to lose shape, and quickly. "Aah! No, no, come..." Her hand had flown to her head, realizing even as she panicked over the disappearance of her savior that her precious hairclip was going to get bloody. She took it off with a distressed little sigh, shutting her eyes at the dizziness that surely was coming from blood loss. At least she had survived one more floor.

How many had there been? Yako sat down, eyes still closed in thought. She flew to her feet, startled, and looked at the plant-lizard thing. It looked back, flicking the tail she had perched on questioningly.

"Wh- wh-!" It was growing again, returning to its former (ridiculously huge) size. Yako narrowed her eyes. Regardless of what Neuro said, she actually was capable of thought, and what she was thinking now was... well, it was impossible.

"I... forgive me, but I need to try something..." The thing settled down on its haunches, the movement reminiscent of a dog more than a lizard. Or, uh, a plant. She slid her hairclip on again, snapped it shut, and...

"Oh my god," Yako breathed, staggering back and tearing off her right hairclip. After a moment of thought she ripped off her left one too, breathing hard, trying not to panic. "Oh my god." Her mind went curiously blank even as she watched the lizard sprout two little nuts from behind its ruff that cracked opened. Clouds of minute yellow chicks with mouths identical to those on her hairclips swarmed out, peeping. They flocked around her like she'd seen Neuro's evil tools do when he used more than one at a time, like servants around a master.

Like tools around their demon.

* * *

The drama of the moment was ruined by her stomach growling angrily. Yako sighed, thinking for the first time in a while of food. "Uhhhn, I'm so hungry..." She'd make Neuro pay for her to eat as much as she wanted, Yako thought, feeling cranky. She'd fight Samish tooth and nail with her newfound... powers, she forced herself to acknowledge. She'd win. She had to. Neuro was on the line. But... oh, god, was that why she always ate so much?! It suddenly made sense- her entire life, Yako had been able to eat amounts of food that would have flat-out killed a normal person. She'd just dismissed that ability, and her constant, consuming hunger, as a quirk, but...

"...My dad knew!" Yako clutched at the hairclips. Maybe they worked like Neuro had mentioned his hair-pyramids did. They had to, or she surely would have figured things out before this. Neuro...

"Nn," Yako stood, watching the chicks (she tried to count them all and failed, giving a little shrug as she gave up) flock to rest in the lizard's mane. "Let's... let's go. Let's go rescue Neuro." The lizard moved up to her size and crouched down, giving an inviting flex of its shoulder. Yako hesitated, feeling shy, but then she clenched her fists and moved onto the thing's back, feeling the cords of plant matter adjust to make her comfortable. A few twined around her legs to secure her in place.

She got the distinct feeling that this plant-lizard moved very, very quickly. That feeling was confirmed at they took off- it felt like she'd been launched out the barrel of a gun.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOD-!!"

* * *

Samish, Yako thought as they flashed past floors and floors of ice and snow, narrowing her thoughts onto him, get ready. I am coming to fight you.

* * *


	4. Modulation

I rather consistently don't own anybody! Still. Also, hello!

**Modulation**

* * *

The moment when Yako burst into the room on the back of a lizard made of greenery, Samish screamed. Yako felt, given her own feelings on him, that this was a perfectly _reasonable_ reaction and narrowed her eyes at him. She could see Neuro slumped over like a doll against the back wall, limbs splayed and expression deeply pained.

"Samish!" She announced, remaining astride this great big _thing_ that was- was hers? "You've hurt a great deal of people. You need to- to go away, go north and never come back!"

The silence that fell was awkward, to say the least. Samish tilted his head, staring at her rather insouciantly. Yako began to sweat a little, realizing just how silly that had sounded. She also began to notice that Neuro's eyes were sliding shut instead of open, and that his suit was dotted, flecked, and stained with entirely too much blood.

"Oh," Samish finally said, chewing on one of his ice-nails. "But I don't _want_ to, you see. It's such a pain. I get bored. And hungry! But mostly _lonely_." His expression slid into such a sweet sad mask that Yako was half-inclined to believe his words, take them at face value. But then Neuro struggled to shift behind him again and she leaned forward, feeling her heart begin to quicken with genuine anger; what she had felt towards Karoliyv was nothing next to this steamy-sticky hatred. While that had left her heart sore for everybody involved, this simply incited her, made her want to rear up and- and- and do something _terrible_. He had hurt Neuro, and he had hurt others, and she would make him _pay_, in one way or another.

"You wouldn't be as lonely if you tried to be a friendly person," Yako corrected brashly, sliding down off her mount. The cloud of chicks followed her like an overly-visible plague, making faint little chirps and twitters. "And didn't beat up people you pretended to care about."

The smile Samish gave her at that moment was utterly icy. Yako was ready for the attack before she'd known she could be, and the viny lizard reached down and casually bit the icicles sent to stab into her in half. They clattered to the ground harmlessly; Yako pretended to not be scared.

"Neuro is mine," the demon clarified, shrugging. "I'm his ultimate fan."

"One hell of a fan," Yako muttered sourly, then shouted: "He's not a possession!"

"HE IS MINE!" Screamed Samish suddenly, and the storm screamed with him. The thin panes of ice that had been acting as windows broke, letting the cold and snow come hurtling in. Yako shuddered, her knees knocking and her lungs suddenly tightening from the sudden frigidity. Her lizard shrunk down a little against the cold, its tail growing stiff with ice and frost. The chicks remained unmoved, still clustering in a minutely noisy little bunch.

Her strongest weapon disposed of for now, Yako stepped forward. She had to be brave. She had to protect Neuro when he was hurt, not because it was in any way her fault, but because she _loved_ him and _hated_ him, and, and, and just wanted him to try _throwing her out a few buildings_ again, not lie still in a pool of his own sizzling blood.

"No," Yako said with quiet certainty, "he's mine."

The wind stopped so quickly it hurt. Samish's expression had frozen, midway between anger and laughter. The snow that had been caught in the wind floated to the ground slowly, and while she knew that it was impossible, Yako could have sworn the little flakes looked confused.

"But mine to care for, not to have. And you will _never_ know what that is." Samish had shown it pretty clearly; while she felt terrible saying, in effect, that he would never love, if this was how he showed his affection it was probably for the best.

"I'm going to kill you," he sang out, extending his hands like an opera singer. But the sudden lack of wind had freed her vine lizard. Not a lot- just enough for it to crack itself free of ice (something inside her chest _ached_ and _ripped_ at that, but she was a little too busy to respond to it beyond gasping) and come to her side. It was all she needed, though.

"Please don't," Yako asked, because she knew with utter certainty right now that he wouldn't come out of it well. He fed, perhaps, on despair and grief and sadness, and she felt none of that right now, none at all. All she had in her heart was hope and a growing ambition and perhaps a bit of joy that Neuro wasn't in a million different pieces.

Samish had never really learned to listen to small, unassuming high school girls. He charged at Yako with his claws drawn, a tide of ice and snow hurtling at her behind him like a tsunami of hurt feelings.

The lizard snapped at the tsunami, blocking it from hitting Yako; she still screamed and closed her eyes as chunks of debris flew towards her at dizzying speeds. Over the sound of the makeshift avalanche, she could hear Samish screaming, could hear the angry little calls of thousands of small yellow chicks with sharp teeth.

It was a horrible noise.

Over the screams and chatters, chirps and wails, there was a hard crack, the groaning, stretching agony of melting ice collapsing. Yako flung up her head, not looking- iover there/i- and ran to Neuro. She slipped and fell once, twice, and then three times, her head spinning with some kind of terrible swaying pain.

Neuro was unconscious but breathing, his wounds mending themselves in a decidedly vague manner. "Please," she called out to her lizard. "We have to get out!"

It lifted its head from where it had collapsed. She saw that its limbs were broken and ripped, that it had an icicle through its eye.

"I'm sorry," she began to repeat, trying very hard not to cry. "Oh, please, I'm so sorry!" Yako bit her lip, cradling Neuro's head in her lap and trying not to look at the poor thing that had saved her, ignoring the horrible screams from beyond the limits of her vision (because she couldn't look, no). But it had been a lot, and, determination aside, she'd never liked anybody getting hurt; now both her lizard and Neuro were, and her head was killing her, and they were all going to _die_ unless she did something….!

With one slow, painful lurch, the lizard dragged itself to her and nudged at Neuro. After it repeated the motion (bleeding green fluid everywhere, leaving a trail as thick as the kind you got from breaking a very large aloe plant) she understood and helped to shove Neuro onto its back. She didn't need to be told to clamber on as well, and with another painful lurch it surged to its broken, splintering feet.

* * *

Yako saw that they were moving, running and jumping, and she blacked out.

* * *

Not true, she would admit to herself later: she'd seen a flash of Samish, but with streaks of greenery poking out of his skin.

Three weeks, two casts, countless stitches, and a sling and crutch later, Yako was being released from the hospital. Godai, at Neuro's instruction, had played it off to the press as some kind of mind-control ray, one that Yako had risked her life to shut off. The public had been dutifully grateful and had even presented her with a medal for her heroism; she had slept through the ceremony and watched a recording of it later on the news that night.

The story was that she'd saved Neuro and her own life by flinging them from a window, and that he'd blown himself and the building they'd been in up. The snow and ice had cushioned their falls, with Neuro miraculously ending up with no injuries whatsoever (it had been a rich mystery, Neuro said, and licked his chops).

Yako had gotten a broken leg, some head injuries, and a broken wrist. She still hurt all over, but in a manner that suggested she would heal. She hadn't taken off her hair clips since, terrified of what would happen- or not happen.

Something inside her still hurt as well, something that felt tender and green and mending-ish. Afraid to mention it to Neuro as she was, she knew she needed to know what was going on. To be honest though (and she turned her head to watch him as he signed her release papers for her), she was… frightened to. She didn't want to talk about anything for a while, including Samish. It could wait.

"You're free to go, Miss Detective." The nurse in charge of the desk bowed to her; Yako had apparently gotten one of her distant cousins out of some trouble a while ago, though she didn't quite recall the man. The nurse had said that it was fine, since she had a rather impressive concussion, and thank you, Miss Detective.

"Thank you," she replied sincerely, being wheeled out already by Neuro. Godai was waiting for them outside.

He took a sour look at her wheelchair before leaning in and reaching to pick her up. Yako shrank back.

"I- I can do it myself, Godai-san!"

"Doctor's orders," he replied, waving a sheet of paper at her. "No hopping around for you."

"I could simply drag you there by your nose," Neuro offered happily, eyes going flat and black. Yako and Godai tossed him a thoroughly disgusted look.

To her surprise, Neuro looked away, his smile sliding down and his shoulders going, for a brief moment, up.

"In you go," and suddenly she had no more time to stare at Neuro, because Godai was picking her up and very delicately placing her in his jeep. Neuro went to work folding up the wheelchair- or, well, he tried to. Godai joined in after a few minutes, and it was with utter amusement that Yako realized that this mystery really was beyond them all.

* * *

Later that night at the office, Yako studied the thing Neuro was putting together. _Dubiously_. Godai had finally gone home after extracting a promise from Yako that she would call a cab instead of wheeling home.

* * *

"You're too young to be a cripple," he'd said, putting on his hat and winding his scarf around his neck. "I knew a guy, he said he was fine and walked on his cast. Next month the doc took it off and he had a crooked leg."

* * *

Neuro had expressed dissatisfaction with her wheelchair and, after picking her up and plopping her on the couch, he'd begun to… modify… it.

"Neuro, don't put _eyeballs_ on the handrests!" She wailed. "And no spikes, either! How am I supposed to sit in that thing?"

He looked up at her evilly, expression sincerely malevolent.

"It will encourage you to get better more quickly." Eyeballinging the spines and other painful-looking implements he'd put on the chair already, Yako was sincerely inclined to disagree.

"Humans don't work that way!" She shouted without thinking, feeling angry and hurt- but then she just felt cornered, because Neuro sneered at her,

"I wasn't aware a wood louse was a human!" and she didn't have an answer.

All she had was a feeling of soreness that felt like a lizard, injuries beyond anything she'd ever gotten before, and a lingering sense of loneliness. Neuro hadn't even acknowledged that she'd come for him, that she'd saved him, that she'd- that she had done what she had. Even if by the time she'd arrived he was out cold, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Samish being gone and her being at his side meant that she'd done _something_.

More than ignoring that, he'd acted as if she had personally wronged him by getting hurt. Seizing on that as a reasonable thing to complain about, she opened her mouth- and spluttered when a piece of bread was shoved into it.

"I think even a wood louse should try a different diet now and then," he grinned, and Yako spluttered in fury around the food. She felt sick with anger, and the fact that her wheelchair was _completely unusable now_ certainly wasn't helping. Were those buzzsaws instead of footrests? (Yes, yes they were, and they had little claws instead of blades. Lovely.)

"NEURO!" She shouted, knowing full well that her cheeks were pink with anger and upset.

He jumped, dropping the tool he was holding- a mosquito the size of a walnut with bolts for feet, wonderful-looking thing that it was- and stared at her.

Yako took a downright _mean_ chew of the bread in her mouth. While she had hoped it would calm her, it did nothing but. Right now, his boyishly surprised expression was the only thing keeping her from crying. He didn't know what he was doing, she reminded herself, just like anything else with humans.

Somehow, that made it worse.

"Or perhaps you'd like me to dangle you from the window instead," he began, standing up with a crackle of joints and holding his hands up, "that _is_ a more fitting location for you than inside, with we superior beings." His fingers were claws again, she noticed sourly, and then frowned ferociously at him. He came close and rested his hand on her head, hesitating for a bare moment before applying his normal sharp pressure.

This time, with a bandage on her head and stitches in for various icicle-related injuries, she yelped in pain and tried to pull away. (If she was a demon, Yako mentally sulked, why couldn't she be cool and heal up like Neuro did? She certainly _ate_ enough.)

Her pulling away made Neuro fall to his knees, eyes switching to big and bright and intent, in front of her. He was close to her, almost too close.

"What's wrong," he said, and his voice was low and soft and pleading (or as soft and pleading as his voice got). "I don't know what to do," Neuro told her; Yako could see that his hands were still talons and his teeth were sharp, but his back was tense as if he was still being beaten around by Samish.

He'd been shaken up, she realized. He'd been frightened, hurt, alone. She tried, for a moment, to think of what it must have been like to wake up in a blizzard (it had gone on even after Samish was gone, lasted for another full week). She had been there, close by, smashed up, broken. Neuro had always made it his priority to keep her from physical harm, but there she had been lying still with blood everywhere, with two compound fractures; it couldn't have been pretty.

She imagined having to be the one to pick up a hurt and broken Neuro. Imagined walking through the driving winds of the blizzard, hoping he would continue to breathe, hoping that he wouldn't suddenly fall still and silent from the cold alone. And so what, maybe she was stretching Neuro's sense of worry for her, but she was young and in a hopeless sort of awkward love, and she knew that young people were permitted to have stupid daydreams like that their magical demon protectors/tormenters cared for them right back.

So it seemed natural to reach up and pet Neuro, brush his little pyramid hair ornaments with her fingers just enough to make them tinkle against each other. He swallowed, still watching her with intensity. Shifting a little, he leaned closer, looking her up and down as if to make icertain/i she was in one piece.

"It's okay, Neuro," Yako consoled him. His eyes slid to the chair and she understood, now that she thought, that too. He wanted things to be better again, to be normal. If he dangled her out a window right now it would be bad, so why not torment her using some strange contraption? And maybe, if she was still being a foolish girl, he had been remodeling it because he had decided it wasn't good enough, in some weird, demon-ish way. "I'll mend. People are good at that."

He frowned like he was processing something. Yako stroked his face with the back of her knuckles, and when he didn't move away she leaned in and pressed an awkward, shy kiss to his mouth. _That_ got his attention, and with an anxious noise, he leaned against her before seeming to realize what she was trying to do.

Neuro blinked at her, eyes flaring up to neon. Suddenly self-conscious, Yako pulled away, leaned back against the couch, and knotted her shaking fingers together.

They sat that way for a long while, with Yako on the couch and Neuro crouched between her legs, one taloned hand resting on her bright pink cast. No matter how hard he stared at her she refused to look back. She'd made a fool of herself, and even though she felt extremely embarrassed, Yako knew that young people were supposed to be kind of stupid too.

When he stood, she worked to repress a sigh of regret. He caught it, though, and turned to stare at her like a demented bird ready to peck her face off. Yako was idly interested to notice that teenage awkwardness fled beautifully under the threat of face-pecking-offing. She'd have to remember that for the future; perhaps she could make some money off it once Neuro tossed her out on her rear.

"You," he pronounced, teeth bared in an honest threat, "are _horrible_ at that."

* * *

A moment of stunned silence later, Yako was still gaping at him. Neuro put a talon to his lips and thought.

"But then again, wood lice don't have lips." Neuro gave a flat frown. "An irritating oversight."

He didn't seem to have any difficulty dodging the things she threw at him, which at least reassured her that he'd healed up _just fine._ (And if she noticed while she was tossing stuff at him that the bread was from one of her favorite bakeries, so what? She threw _that_ at him too.)

* * *

* * *

Hello! Hmmm, so it's been a while, right? I'm sorry it took this long. Once I get to something, I can knock it out reasonably well! … Maybe, haha. I wonder if this is still any good- do fanfics have a "post by" date? Anyway, if I get around to it there will be another story coming up soonish. Thank you with much enthusiasm to everybody that reviewed and favorited and 3. You are all tremendously kind, and I hope this post cheered you some.

On a personal note, it's funny to me that when I was writing these stories originally I was studying Chinese in high school… and now I'm in China, studying it in college in an exchange program. Anyway, work hard, whoever you may be reading this, and someday you might find yourself somewhere surprising! I believe in you!


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